I cast the spell, and a large blinking set of lines appeared. I mentally clicked on the river in front of us, received a warning that the spell wouldn’t cover the entire river, and hitdeploy.
“Bumpers away!”
“Here we go!” Donut said as she leaned forward, focusing on the wide river. She castIce Slick.
In seconds, the entire river froze, cracking and splitting and occasionally exploding as the frozen water spread out in a winding pattern following the bumpers. The spell normally cast in a cone, but because of theBumperspell, the ice followed the riverandwas extended by an additional 50%.
TheGutter Bumperspell wasn’t quite what I was tirelessly seeking for explosions, but in this case, it was perfect. I’d never met Mehmet, the Turkish man who’d given me the spell, but I’d heard of him before. He’d focused on support spells and skills, always making sure the other members of his party were as buffed up as they could be. He’d saved countless lives during the pitched battles of Faction Wars. He reminded me of Imani in that way.
People like him were the true heroes of this dungeon.
Screams rose as the hundreds of inner tube gingers suddenly became stuck in place.
We bumped as we drove right over the dock, over the now-frozen raft, and onto the ice.
“Follow the river!” Donut called. “Carl!”
The back doors were already open. I pulled the tie holding them down, and I kicked the hastily fashioned brush hog out the back.
It was all the excess non-magical weapons I had in my inventory hurriedly fastened together in a line of chains, all attached to the back of the truck. The loose weapons dragged,bouncing and cutting and slicing and clobbering everything behind the truck as we rushed over the ice.
As for the hundreds of gingers frozen and stuck in the river, the dragging weapons cut through them like weeds.
“It’s working!” I called as we started to slide sideways on the ice. “Gah!” I ducked as a chain broke, slicing past my head like a whip. “Keep it straight!”
Joel the undead camel groaned.
“Cast now!” I called to Donut.
We knew the chains wouldn’t get everyone, so we had a finisher on hand.
Donut castSummon Ye, Vermin.
The spell would instantly draw every rodent in the area to Donut.
Most of the zipper shrews would have to traverse the frozen path, drilling through everything in their path, including any surviving gingers on the river. If the chains didn’t get them, this definitely would.
And within moments, a gray wave of rodents appeared, coming from all directions at once.
“Here they come!” I shouted.
Florin: Attempting the loop! They’re on our ass. They’re gonna try to bump us, so I’m shooting a missile now!
“There he is! Maurice! He’s not a monkey!” Donut called from the front of the truck. She was finally alone in the passenger’s seat, and Dorota had grown the special princess basket for her to sit upon. “He doesn’t even have hair!” She gasped. “He’s casting a spell!”
The Maurice that Imani had had to face might’ve been an orangutan, but this version looked a lot like that cartoon ogre Shrek, though still human. The large man had one arm free and was attempting to cast something. He never got a chance.A wave of the zipper shrews, coming from the direction we were driving, overwhelmed him, drilling through him. The man unpeeled before us, having had a dozen holes drilled in him all at once from behind. Little curls of skin and gore erupted in all directions, turning him into a flower made of flesh before it all collapsed on the red ice. A moment later, the blood-soaked shrews exploded against our shield.
There was a chime.
Quest Complete! Pasty Inferno.
So, this is where I’d tell you how to locate the engineer you just won, but that guy is now in a million pieces, spread all over the ice... Aaaand you just ran over his corpse, splitting him into even more pieces with those chains you’re dragging. Like, holy shit, guys. Talk about overkill. You know you only had to kill that boss guy, right? This whole thing is really fucked-up. This is seriously bordering on ginger genocide.
The good news is, the quest is complete. I guess that means you can finish the track!
“There’s the exit!” Donut cried, pointing. “Wow, we did that fast! Turn there! Turn there!”
We bumped as we exited the river. Joel the camel groaned incoherently, his head on his broken neck flapping as we rocked up and down. Shrews by the thousands were coming from every direction, suiciding against our shield, which was moving into the red.